Fancy a deep dive into the world of anime and digital art? Join us as we navigate this vibrant sphere alongside our special guest Amelia, an ambitious animator hailing from France. This episode is crammed full of insightful discussions ranging from the evolution of anime to the rise of computer graphics in animation. Amelia's fascination with the integration of CGI and traditional animation not only enlightens us about her personal journey in animation but also opens up a lively discourse on this underappreciated aspect of modern anime.
What does the future of animation behold? As we venture further into the digital realm, Amelia opens up about learning animation in the age of the internet, taking us through the ebb and flow of 2D and 3D animation and the burgeoning role of digital tablets. Hear about her dreams of being part of a fighting game team, and get a sneak peek into the resilient spirit that fuels aspiring animators. If you've ever wondered about the barriers, techniques, and tools that come with pursuing a career in animation, this segment is a gold mine of information.
Finally, we switch gears and delve into the cultures of renowned studios like Studio Ghibli and Trigger, the nuanced dynamics of anime adaptations, and the fascinating world of visual novels. Amelia also shares her thoughts about popular anime shows, how to rate anime, and offers some top-notch recommendations for all anime fans. Wrapping up this anime extravaganza, Amelia leaves us contemplating the ever-evolving art scene and the influence of the old and new generations of animators. Hop on for this captivating voyage into the colorful world of anime!
Follow us on our socials! Also.... Watch some Fucking Anime!
Fancy a deep dive into the world of anime and digital art? Join us as we navigate this vibrant sphere alongside our special guest Amelia, an ambitious animator hailing from France. This episode is crammed full of insightful discussions ranging from the evolution of anime to the rise of computer graphics in animation. Amelia's fascination with the integration of CGI and traditional animation not only enlightens us about her personal journey in animation but also opens up a lively discourse on this underappreciated aspect of modern anime.
What does the future of animation behold? As we venture further into the digital realm, Amelia opens up about learning animation in the age of the internet, taking us through the ebb and flow of 2D and 3D animation and the burgeoning role of digital tablets. Hear about her dreams of being part of a fighting game team, and get a sneak peek into the resilient spirit that fuels aspiring animators. If you've ever wondered about the barriers, techniques, and tools that come with pursuing a career in animation, this segment is a gold mine of information.
Finally, we switch gears and delve into the cultures of renowned studios like Studio Ghibli and Trigger, the nuanced dynamics of anime adaptations, and the fascinating world of visual novels. Amelia also shares her thoughts about popular anime shows, how to rate anime, and offers some top-notch recommendations for all anime fans. Wrapping up this anime extravaganza, Amelia leaves us contemplating the ever-evolving art scene and the influence of the old and new generations of animators. Hop on for this captivating voyage into the colorful world of anime!
Follow us on our socials! Also.... Watch some Fucking Anime!
Welcome back to the Highland man Podcast. I'm your co-host, jason Sinalong, as always with my co-host, spencer.
Speaker 2:What's up? Happy Labor Day.
Speaker 1:And, as promised, all the way from France. I'm not sure if you want to say where region, but we have our esteemed colleague here, amelia. You want to say hello?
Speaker 3:Paris, oh Paris, oh Paris.
Speaker 1:Oh shit from the heart. Well, thank you, amelia, for joining us. For those listening wondering how we got to interview someone from France, I was connected to a group and Discord for anime content creators and Amelia here is an aspiring animator, obviously, I would assume, is into anime and yeah, we're going to dive into all that, we hope at least. I mean, if you're not into anime, that'll be interesting fucking conversation for sure. But we're super excited to have you on and get someone's different perspective, especially someone we don't know. Spencer brought this up in the last episode. We've interviewed primarily friends, so this is really exciting for us. But to give everyone out there listening, we're going to ask our interview questions and then we'll get to know Amelia a little more, what they like about, you know, animating and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, spencer, we're discussing off air, I mean, I think, the easiest question to lead off. I'll start with the first question, spencer, if you want to lead up after easiest question, there is Amelia do you like anime?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I'm wearing my zero to t-shirt.
Speaker 1:So, like, what kind of anime? Like you know, for those listening out there, like you know, I mean we're, we're big one piece fans. I mean we grew up watching Dragon Ball and Gun. Why gun and wing? For me, stuff like that Like what do you? What do you into? Like, do you like isekai, do you like shown in what's what's the, what's the preference?
Speaker 3:Actually, there were two phases of me watching anime. Okay, there was the first phase where I was a kid and I watched Pokemon Yu-Gi-Yo baby Standard standard. Then I go to middle school, strong hard middle school. I did not watch anime school and then I school. But the anime that got me back into anime was actually from cute animation, it was what was it? I mean Kukenokanata, beyond the boundary, if you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've heard of that one, so what's that about?
Speaker 3:It's about a girl that can manipulate blood to create a sword, and when we check it up, I think it's a story about it. The show is Kukenokanata. It's quite, quite important because cute animation is really big.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting, I mean for me. I guess the like to follow up question is how do you watch anime? Are you watching on crunchy roll or how is it? You know, I'm going to say crunchy roll is worldwide. So like, how do you consume anime?
Speaker 3:Personally online.
Speaker 1:So like websites.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:My, yeah, I was right, by the way, about Koyama Da being the storyboarder for some part of Kukenokanata. That means she was quite close to the direction she was actually an opposite director. I don't know if you know that and should see the other time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I have no idea. That's crazy. I mean, for me this is interesting to me because I think the perspective of how you're going about anime and how we go about anime seems drastically different already so far to me. Like, I guess my. My question is and I'm hopefully I understand everything with the language barrier, you're doing a great job. Honestly, like I can't speak French at all. I wish I could. This would be a sick ass interview if we could speak fucking French, me and Spencer. All those Spencer seems like the German type, I don't know, but have you one piece? What do you think about one piece? That's my curiosity here, then, because I feel like it's like the biggest show in the world. Do you like one piece of? You watched it? Do you know it?
Speaker 3:At the beginning I was really pulled off by. I was kind of disgusted by the elasticity of the film. But throughout the lockdown I watched another episode and I'm at like episode one thousand and fifteen.
Speaker 2:Oh shit.
Speaker 3:And so I really like, throughout the show, the quality of the direction, especially towards the flamingo, and Okay, yeah. Also, the inclusion of three DCG is really something that the remark ever. I don't know if you've seen it.
Speaker 1:Seen what Sorry say again Three computer graphics. Oh yeah, the three computer graphics. I feel like the graphics. So have you seen the most recent episodes of one piece like the?
Speaker 2:stuff that was on like one fifty or something.
Speaker 1:Oh, one fifty. Oh okay, I thought we will default the flamingo arcs way past that right though.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I think he was saying that he likes that one a lot.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, well, okay. So in the most recent anime, without you know, ruining too much for you, hopefully you go through and watch all of it because it is the top dog. Animation style has been different, right, spencer? I mean yep, yep, do you think it's CGI.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't think. Well, I mean, I think there's always a C and I think, from an animation standpoint, that's what a lot of people get confused. And even even to me I didn't even realize, as I was kind of doing some light research coming up into this there's a ton of shows that have way more CGI in them than you would ever think.
Speaker 1:Then you would ever think yeah.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people they have like that. The stereotype is like oh hey, pencil the paper right and like that's how they still make an anime. It's like oh hell, no dude.
Speaker 1:That's not even it, yeah.
Speaker 2:That might even almost be a dying part.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you know about Yoko Tama Moru. He was an animation. I believe he's still animation director. Like Sakuga Kan Toku is the person that does the correction for anime, and I met him this year in France oh cool, he was doing a talk panel today and so I believe he said that to a degree, they still use paper to do corrections.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Corrections Okay.
Speaker 3:It's a concept also by. I don't know if you know about some math in general from tunneling animation.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 3:He's an animation subcontracting studio in between, I believe, or going up maybe, and basically he said that up to lockdown. It was common for studios in Japan to ship the key animation Donald paper or printed to China, shipped by sea. And that's all I've done, because the huge shift in the industry causing studios to start scanning, yeah, scanning them to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's interesting. You bring that up because, like Spencer is saying, we're doing a little bit of light research for gone here, because you're like, you're pretty much speaking a language to me right now. Personally, I think Spencer knows a little bit more than this and this, I think, speaks larger to something outside of anime, with Spencer, me and Spencer huge music fans, spencer, like we could put something on. Spencer goes boom, knows every fucking bandmate, and I'm like how the fuck do you know that? And I think this is where you're coming to come from. You're like, oh, yeah, so and so from Toei animation. I'm like who? Because?
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't you know why, and that's impressive, that's really cool and I'm glad I'm getting this perspective because, yes, I know, as soon as you sit to a animation, expense me like, okay, yeah, obviously we know we're one piece fans, like we did. I mean, they're huge production company and there's a ton. We like Moppa, you got Silver Inc, you got JC staff I mean there's I. When I hear the names, I start to know them, but I don't know the animators and the drawers. And I like what you brought up about the paper, because the light research I did and I shared the article with Spencer here was really interesting that they said that, yes, I think you're.
Speaker 1:You brought up a great point, amelia, that the corrections they're still doing on paper and not to say they don't do animations on paper. I'm sure they still do for stuff, but it's from what we read. It seems like a lot more is well CGI and like the 3d art, using, like an art styler, digital art and that because of the sensitivity of the styles or stylists, now they can actually do really good work on 3d art. Is that something that you've? I mean you said you're a beginner. What kind of platform do I get? Let's just dive right into it, because this is where the conversation is leading like what kind of Do you use a stylist? What kind of software do you use Do you draw? Give us a little insight into that.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I'm going to first add a little precision to what you just said. You said, the corrections were still done on paper, but I know that there's also I don't know if it's storyboard pro, but there is software for storyboarding on digital and I actually believe that corrections can be done in digital.
Speaker 3:It's more like I don't know if you've heard about the term web-gen animators, but basically it's when animators come from digital illustration, for example, and as opposed to people that were in the industry, like in the 90s, the 2000s, the people that are kind of older generations they're more old school and prefer maybe to work on paper, like Gibraldo IOMI, whereas the one that's more a digital native, like Gen Z, the very new generation, would probably prefer to be on the tablet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so who is the person you mentioned before? Well, what kind of work? Who are some of your digital artists that you like, and what companies do they work for? Which animators do they work on? Do you have that kind of insight, because I don't.
Speaker 3:On my part, there is Benjamin Furr, who's the background I got to learn because he did an interview in French with foodfront app, which is a website where I sometimes translate and transcribe transcripts from French to English this time.
Speaker 3:Generally I do English transcription and basically he was from 3D. Macguff was a 3D studio that was bought by Illumination at some point and basically I liked the fact that he comes from 3D and then ended up doing 3D or maybe using 3D as a tool to be a 3D artist as well as 3D at the same time, but in my case I prefer to use a blend off and learning only CGI. I do have a tablet with a display screen. It's when you can see the screen on the tablet itself. However, I prefer to draw on paper because it's freer and I still haven't gotten around to learn my new tablet. And yes, I do draw, but I'm not at the point where I can really do stuff beyond copying 3D. That's why I prefer 3D.
Speaker 1:You could do better than us.
Speaker 3:I can read make the skeleton of what I wanted.
Speaker 1:So it's rather new, okay, cool, yeah, no, lots of unpack right there. I mean, first thing I heard was that I didn't hear catch the person's whole name, but it sounded like the person from Moppa who did the 3D art background did an interview in French and that's really cool. I'm always kind of curious, spencer, what about you? Do we even know of any full on American staffs or outside of American voice actors? I know that's a hard question. I didn't think you knew.
Speaker 2:I was throwing a Hail Mary there, I was like, hey, spencer, you know that one, I barely know some actors. I sent some major actors I might be able to hammer down, but no, as far as the animators and stuff, well, and I think something you said earlier on too liking the outro, the animation that they do into that. I think that, from a standpoint of why you're saying you like to draw because it's so freeing, I think that is one thing that's cool about intros and outros today is that it's very free, flowing, kind of you think, like Hell's Paradise intro, right, like that's a badass intro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you have a lot more creative freedom in those areas and I think that's why people tend to like them, and obviously for us to pair that with some good music or something that's hitting like on the rocks. Matches the aesthetic as well as just the tone of the music. I think that's something that always, like initially, kind of, will catch somebody. Maybe not episode one, because they generally don't do them in the first episode.
Speaker 1:But I mean, that's something we've talked about, you know and well and decent length intros and outros in general, right In previous episodes. And Amelia, you sent me a couple of your CGI clips that you've been making. It looked like it was primarily Pokemon. Do you have like what you know where? You know where is the aspiration going to go to? Are you trying to be someone that's going to be a part of the staff? Are you trying to just do outros? Are you just doing it for fun, kind of? Where's your outlook on that?
Speaker 3:If you know about animation schools in France, I guess I would have to go to a private school if I wanted to do something on the higher level level. To be hired, yeah, and that's kind of.
Speaker 3:I don't really have the kind of money to invest but, cheaper than in America where I would have to like take a loan for $100,000. And there are some goals for Great Britain, I believe the UK, but in France, at the very least, we have such a schooling system that we don't really have to take big loans to those today. And that's why I'm at Jard. I actually have a degree, a bachelor, in theater. That's my academic background. I did to it right away, after that to animation and, as for Pokemon, I do fun animations, but I also do 3D modeling on the side to learn. For example, today I proposed to join a team for a fighting game it's at the basis and I tried to do some special effects and I saw a small exercise on modeling a bucket and composition like a photograph. But I do prefer animation because whether I come from an animation, that's my man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, okay, interesting.
Speaker 2:I think something, yeah, that you can kind of unpack out of there, which is very similar to here Well, probably everywhere anyone likes anime is that there are always barriers and in some cases, significant barriers, and preventing people from being able to get into the anime field I would agree.
Speaker 2:So you think about it, I would be willing to bet and maybe I'm wrong. Probably one of the biggest things that holds people back from being able to get into that especially from a 3D CG standpoint the software I would imagine, programming software to be able to do that is probably very expensive or takes a computer that you know, a high power computer that can run that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:A blender is totally free.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Not even licensing, I believe, for studios, because it's open source, so you could do your own fork. And there is a fork that is specially for anime being developed. It's called Blender Goo and it's cool. Now, goo and Jai, hmm, Well, I stand corrected, but I did invest in a new desktop because for everything that is like simulating fluid, it takes a lot of computing power, Whereas if you want to do something like locally modeling, like what you see in World of Warcraft or Fortnite, it's less computing in sense computer intensive computing intensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, computer intensive. That's funny. You bring that up because I think you know again we like to use the word unpacking as we're learning each other's you know interest and going forward. I in that article also. They talk about it sounds like you're kind of blending that in. You said the fighting game with the special effects. Other people are working with that. Video games and anime actually have a bit and we've talked about it a little bit but we haven't highlighted it on it a lot. Me and Spencer definitely like video games, we're playing them and I guess that there is a direct correlation nowadays between the 3D art that they use in video games and anime. It's not all the same. Obviously, the drawing style of anime and Japanese art is a lot different than American art. But the thing that interests me the most in the article on how far you got into Spencer, was that Unreal Engine is this. You know I will start there. Have you heard of Unreal Engine? Do you know what that is?
Speaker 3:It's for me, oh, spencer, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no for you. Sorry, yeah for you.
Speaker 3:Okay, unreal Engine I heard about it. Actually I want to like I don't know how you'd call it, but it's like I think by a studio drama. Actually it's like introducing all the various schools you could go to to learn design, fashion, luxury design, luxury fashion and animation, and school like cinema, film studies and the personality I learned about it. They talked about Unreal Engine and the game engines are becoming very hyper realistic and in real time, and especially Unreal Engine. You need to stuff like that. It's a physically based rendering and personally I don't really care about that because I feel like I like that about it in one article, but the more realistic your 3D becomes, and the less it actually has as compared to stuff like Borderlands, if you remember this game, sorry is it a game again?
Speaker 3:Borderlands?
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've heard of that one.
Speaker 3:It's basically not very realistic. I tried to type it too, but the coloring was very interesting in this game.
Speaker 2:Oh, Borderlands, yeah oh.
Speaker 1:Borderlands Sorry, oh, geez, my bad. Yes, okay, I never played Borderlands, I knew about it.
Speaker 2:I just realized he's doing double duty over here. I was zoomed in on the full screen, but he's typing in the chat as well, so he's giving us some.
Speaker 3:Oh, the private chat.
Speaker 2:I didn't notice before. Yeah, yeah, so okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, look at this. I mean you're awesome Language barrier. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit of a language barrier, but you know Nothing too bad, we're picking up most of it. So, okay, well, I got. I got another question then, for if you're, if you're drawing, and all that is, I read something I didn't even fucking know, that there's like different hardness to pencils. You have like artist pencils. You know about this, spencer? It goes from a raining of like one H to nine H.
Speaker 2:No, well, I mean I would imagine, yeah, there's probably a lot of different types of pencils. I know. I mean you think just you take an art school, yeah, middle school, high school, right, it's like, oh, you do like watercolors and you do like big pens and shit, and you know obviously outside like, oh hey, you got a number two pencil, you got mechanical pencil, right, yeah, I'm sure there's a ton of different stuff. You know, like I had family that was pretty into art early on so they had like a bit, there's different types of paper, there's different types of like I mean you got pastels, like, yeah, Well, I'm really saying right here in the chat to help us out so ballpoint pens is what you prefer.
Speaker 1:But I'm just curious to you know about the different artistic pencils. Like that's what it seems like when I read this article, the animations of like oh well, we use this one to give a softer look, a harder look, and I'm like, because you would think, I don't know, I'm just gonna draw on really fucking hard, it's gonna be darker. You know what I mean by guess. It's not necessarily case. So what's your outlook on that?
Speaker 3:Sure, but there are some. You know this side of art is very funny because the mother you learn about the different, different Pen and tools, the more your expressivity Augments. And you find it the same in digital art, because there are brushes. When I started drawing, I used fire alpaca, which is a, I think I'm so slightly, at the very least, just free, and I could use the brushes that I found online and do my own and Customize them. And the same when I moved to quitter, another drawing software that is free and what. In the anime industry they prefer to use a clip studio pen. Maybe you've heard about this.
Speaker 1:No, okay, and you're saying you can customize it. So you're saying like okay, hey, and I'm speaking on my ass here, I don't know I'm talking about you get, okay, I got my light pencil compared to my 40% shader pencil, and then, but you're like oh, you know what I, I like it at 33%. It gives that like is that how it kind of works? Like, how, how does it? How does it work? The tools that you can use on digital art.
Speaker 3:There is something I believe called correction, which is like an algorithm that smoothens the Strokes that you put on the table. That's the pressure. Oh, the pressure is Um interpreted by your tablet. Depends on your hardware, as well as how you customize the pens, the brush if we was always. You'll just talk with the Basic tools of what you downloaded, but I think true artists will prefer to Push the limits of expressility themselves and therefore probably experiment with the settings of that.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:The artist is you have different brushes on, sometimes for special effects, for example I, you probably read a lot of manga.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Queen turns, screen turns. It's like when there is black and white Alternating in a, in a pattern like oh yeah yeah sure. This is screen turn and it creates contrast and the texture start contrast and there are Brushes that we produce screen turns.
Speaker 2:Therefore, you can have something like that yeah, I will, and from a mega standpoint, I mean, that's obviously probably like the number one thing that you get, because for the vast majority of At least what, what has not been out for a while comes out black and white. So the contrast is massive. Like it's very important that you know when you're trying, because even to you know, I'll be like a I'm reading the one-piece manga, right, you know, like sometimes as you go through it, like I'll read that shit like twice. There's like an episode, right, I'll go through that.
Speaker 2:You don't necessarily catch everything right away, and especially like it's like a mega, like one piece, they hide a lot of different little small things throughout, throughout, maybe like one panel. You know there's it might be one massive panelist, the whole fucking page right, and you have all of this shit going on and you know, maybe it's broken down into like three, so you know smaller subcategories, or sometimes it is just one whole thing, and also, this is black and white. So, like that contrast is super important to be able to determine the depth of the characters. I was like, oh, did this punch just hit that? You know, how does this move look right?
Speaker 2:I mean, you think, obviously the fights that we got going on right now seeing that on On manga first is like has still been just as good as watching it Animated right, and that's just the testament to, I think, how good the artists were and how well they were able to use, you know, utilize the different type of techniques, like you know, contrast and shading and Shit, I don't even know what. I'm sure there's a lot more art terms. I know that's what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying I feel lost in the fucking sauce right now. This is really cool, though, because I'm going back through your chat right here, amelia, and we're saying I didn't realize that when you're saying in, I'm gonna butcher this and shoot to me equals episode direction. And when we're talking about one piece and then you said the gentleman's name, benjamin fall Fower he did the background for chainsaw man I'm just kind of catching myself up here. So, based on Episode direct, is that how you go about? I'm switching gears here.
Speaker 1:I love, I love what we're talking about, the art, we can get back into it, but when you you get home, right, you're whatever. You, you're kicking it, you're chilling, you're relaxing, do it? Does it come to mind like, hey, I'm gonna pop on the internet or I'm gonna go? I mean, you said you don't watch crunchyroll, so like I want to go on the internet and I'm gonna check out an anime, is it? How soon? Do you know if you're gonna like an episode's direction? And what does that mean to you? Like is that? I like harem base, I like Transported into another world, I like superpowers, I like slice of life, like where do you align yourself at, if anywhere?
Speaker 3:Okay, so if you check my, my Animalist, maybe I'll even to it.
Speaker 1:Oh, my animalist talk about all the time we got each other for sure.
Speaker 3:Shows I'm currently watching and 600 I actually completed To watch other shows like go seek out Mason Icoco.
Speaker 1:If you know about this, I See right here, I've never watched it.
Speaker 3:No 86, it was really 86 and I should. I prefer to come back to other shows right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're like me, you like to kind of flop brown shows.
Speaker 3:Okay, not like this guy Every year, season and what. What characterizes whether I like a show and that I'm basically Directors are probably the best recurring link, because Really good for this. Because studios they can hire different Directors and they can outsource animators. However, there are some Studios that have an in-house culture and when I'm good studio as a good in-house culture, then they become a very recognizable like Tutor, animation trigger. Trigger as like a Kairi Karashi, yoyo Shinari, very big names in the industry, and when a good yeah, maca Toshiki, for example, is an in-house name at his, basically what you do, the rest is all by comics with him coming with him and okay okay.
Speaker 3:The directors are very much the better link, the best link between different shows. You so, nakoto Shintai Miyazaki Isawa Takahata, the grave of the Firefly, all that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're going off of directors, then Is that what it sounds like to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm surprised too. So is it commonplace for a show like a popular show like that to have a different director? You're saying like a different director per episode, or is it like you get a block of like five episodes this director does the five episodes and the next five it's another director? But I definitely get it from the in-house standpoint. I mean, when you think about like some of these, like what is that Studio Ghibli, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like the spirit, did away, like everything like they're very like hand drawn and like traditional, you know. And then, yeah, you talk about Trigger and you know you mentioned Mapa earlier. We're very familiar with Mapa. Very big Mapa fans, yeah, the shows that we've been into recently, but I didn't realize it was. I guess that makes sense, though it's almost like a big sports agency, right? You're like, okay, hey, I'm these big bad guys, you know these big well-known teams, and we can almost like a free agent and be like, hey, guess what?
Speaker 1:It's almost like basketball super team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm signing you to a 10-day contract and we're going to do this one episode. Let's see how it works out. Right, you know, and it kind of makes sense, though, when you think about it like from you know, and I don't know even if this show had done it, but when I think about it from a show that we actually haven't caught back up on, like Manga Stray Dogs, there's a lot of in those first two seasons.
Speaker 2:there's a lot of like kind of like ins and outs of like okay, hey, it kind of felt like it was this style or going this way Different people.
Speaker 1:That's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like completely like a different thing right when they kind of put their own take on it. What's that fucking? There's like a horse show on Netflix Cabinet of. Curiosities or some shit.
Speaker 1:Oh, and I think about American Horse Story.
Speaker 2:but Well, I know there's that one too. I don't know if that one's the same, but the one that I'm talking about it's like. It's like a different story. An hour fucking episode every week, right that's.
Speaker 1:American Horse Story.
Speaker 2:And each one. Well, that show might do it as well, but that's not what I'm talking about. But yeah, so it's like their own curated story. It has like nothing. All ties in. All the episodes don't tie in together, right, it's week by week, it's its own.
Speaker 1:It's a linear thing, goes from just getting in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and it's directed by somebody different every single time.
Speaker 3:There's another thing I forgot to add.
Speaker 3:You see, I mentioned Yucota Mamoru as an animation director, I believe or perhaps the world could also be chief animation director, I don't know if you know that, but basically it's both are people that do corrections and give their veto for if a cut is done good or not, or if a scene is good, and I believe that both with directors directors they do the storyboard.
Speaker 3:Therefore, the composition of what is like appearing on screen is much to them, but animation directors have so given a lot of consistency to show and that's a good sign of animation quality, because if you see Berzak 2016, it was a huge shitstorm, basically, but animation directors according to the director that said in an interview for Anime News Network, he said that small studios can't compete with bigger studios for having good animation directors because they have to plan a schedule ahead of time because of the industry being like that, and I said, animation directors give consistency to a show, but also, sometimes, animation directors are character designers themselves, like Oshinoko Kana Irayama, also known as Kappi, was a character designer and she is also the chief animation director of anime. Basically, she gave a lot of consistency to the show.
Speaker 2:What show does she do? Or shows have she done? Oshinoko, that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to talk and look over your list at the same time.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably the same thing for all of those big three when you think about Dragon Ball and Naruto he did all of the drawing, obviously. Now not so much. He's got a whole fucking team that does everything for him. Now, probably he just oversees and makes sure it's to his liking.
Speaker 1:You never know how these interviews are going to go. This has been very enlightening for me because you know so much about the background and what you want to do with 3D art and I think it's fucking awesome. You see that, Seven years, 47,000 drawings.
Speaker 1:I'm more interested in changing gears here. If we were to try to elicit your services and we wanted to do a little cut screen for our show, for example the Highlander Podcast, and we wanted to do animation, how hard would it be to take a rendering, a picture of me, a picture of Spencer, and make that into anime? This is a question I've asked to the people. How tough is that? You mean with 3D or?
Speaker 2:2D.
Speaker 3:I think it's a character.
Speaker 2:They draw you up. You sit there for 20 minutes and they do a a rendering like an emphasize or not emphasize. They.
Speaker 1:Joe drama. I think, you got the word right earlier and Emily said your caricature, that that's what it is. Yeah, so how hard would that be to do 2d or 3d, and give us the basis for both?
Speaker 3:I guess, yeah, yeah, but for anime, if you want something, well, there are multiple ways to go about it. You could go 3d and then have, like you take a picture and then you have an artificial intelligence software that can just simplify it for you. I really like a artificial intelligence. That's kind of Taboo in the community, oh.
Speaker 1:Is it okay? Yeah, I see, you see it all the time, everywhere I think I made a picture. I said you, Spencer right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, even as you said that, like how scared is the industry with with AI really coming in there and taking over? I know that they got websites now where it's like I was reading them, reading some article last week about how, like some, some guys made a, a website where it has like all of the South Park, like animations in it and you can literally go through there and make your own South Park.
Speaker 2:No way like it looked good, dude, like they showed, like there's a video, you can watch the video. Like a sample AI created South Park episode and like it's fucking good. I was just like whoa.
Speaker 1:That's the teacher I work with is saying like hey, do an AI created like segment for your show to start off? He was saying that shit too. So is there a big threat of that in the anime industry.
Speaker 3:Yes, actually it's kind of complicated because from one side you have a 3d which is like in the In America and you in the United States. Basically, you can see something like Disney as Disney.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Switched from and run animation to 3d CG.
Speaker 1:I saw that an article.
Speaker 3:Ghibli has done as well. If you've seen the story, ghibli has done a full CG movie. Yeah, and basically I believe it's kind of the same thing like undone stuff that being targeted by the technological improvement of computers but I believe there is still going to be worse and stuff like, yeah, basically, when you commission an artist, I still believe that Having prestige from the artist himself working for you will be worth it, but Animation, I don't think. Well, I'm not. There is a director of us, you know, a CEO of a studio, the one I mentioned here, martin Gerratt, and he's in favor of using AI, I believe and.
Speaker 3:I know wheat and Netflix. At the same time did the background with AI.
Speaker 1:On Netflix? Definitely has, yeah.
Speaker 3:Shouldn't we knew something like that? So I believe there is risk, and Especially because there is a crisis in Japan actually for teaching and run 3d animation to new students, and this crisis, I believe, might be Unpowered by AI, and I believe, I hope, at the very least, that it could lead to the industry where it's like a lot of freelancers and you know stuff with.
Speaker 1:Submitting your work, yeah.
Speaker 3:I wish that maybe they could have the impulse to Create a nationwide union in France. Union culture is very big compared to, like the United States, japan, so I'm not having favor of this model.
Speaker 1:Was that a jab at the United States? Melia, calm down, man. This isn't a France against America thing. We're just kidding. We're just kidding, but I didn't realize that that was a big thing. Yeah, we know, you know we have unions, but I didn't realize that was a big thing. In France, actually, it makes sense. I feel like a lot of ideals Way back when came from, obviously, the UK and France to us and Things that we built upon a long time ago. So that's just funny. But so the unions, oh, the strikes. Right now I heard that France has been getting kind of wild. The rider strikes here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we were just talking about that before we got in there. Actually, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up. You thought there wasn't even any relation to the anime world, probably. I was like there, probably is, that's also the new.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's why it's not coming out. You know, on a regular schedule. I'm like, oh, maybe they're tied into this fucking yeah, I put that bubble in your brain. Are you seeing a new South? You know Simpson episodes, so you see a new? You know, like I don't even know.
Speaker 1:I don't even know why you're talking about normie TV show. You don't even watch normie.
Speaker 2:Simpsons are normie TV.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, they've been around for like 30 years on normal TV Was. Is it a crunchy roll?
Speaker 2:once we've been around for a long time, is that normie TV now too? It is now so long. Everybody knows.
Speaker 1:What's hey, which man? A normalized anime on this fucking podcast. All right, yeah, like fuck bleach.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you that right now, right now, right here. So I love all the art stuff you given us gives us a lot to think about. I want to dive back into.
Speaker 1:Spencer, do you have something you want to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks for picking up on that. Yeah, I was actually curious. Still, on the art side of things, yeah, it's said that you have your your BA. Yeah, I think I'm gonna go back to the art side of things.
Speaker 2:I think I'm gonna go back to the art side of things. Yeah it's said that you have your, your BA in theater. Have you ever thought, did you have like a screenplay in mind that you would like to? Maybe transition over to an anime. Are you working any ideas like that?
Speaker 1:the storyboard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be an adaptation either. It could be your own original, your own original thought yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, the last time I watched a play for from a manga in live was actually by a Japanese, I don't know. You say that in English. Then you, it was at the Japan expo what I want and At Japan expo, you have, you had that and it was basically women that were next thing like a samurai I manga. There are other parents also, because I believe they were talking about like the early globalization of Japan with the fifth 16th century and Released. I liked it and I tried during my bachelor to use the most possible during my assessment. Anything that could be linked to Japan is the and yeah, I also watched some Some live adaptations of Robotics, not which is, and it's from the same series as Stansgate, in the same chair, you know.
Speaker 1:Stansgate Okay, yeah, yeah, I can see that now when I look at the picture I see here on your my anime list and what I would Try to adapt and play.
Speaker 3:Basically, I guess what would work the best would be something for that lacks some character, acting that and that could be figurative. There is one one thing from a tsukino sango by writer for everything.
Speaker 2:Fade stay night oh.
Speaker 3:Yes, tsukino sango is like a coral of the moon. There is a manga and the return for a voice actress and the treasure is but me. I would like to see it being an accident Jones to my life.
Speaker 1:Interesting yeah.
Speaker 3:I was looking. Sorry but right.
Speaker 2:It's for you guys, when you wait, when you're saying a visual novel, is that the same as a light novel?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because our terminology here is like a manga.
Speaker 2:What I heard, man, why you say before and yeah, I think the light novel is the same as what he's saying a visual novel. Okay, I would assume, I don't know. I mean, maybe a visual novel is more of a book version of you know what I Guess, or maybe more of a storyboard version of a book. Perhaps, you know, I'm not sure there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought that I thought you would know. Yeah, Amelia. So what a visual novel? Is that the same as what we would call a light novel? Oh, looks like maybe. Oh, we got two in here now, Okay.
Speaker 3:Wow, it's well. In either way, Can you repeat from where we left off?
Speaker 1:You're good yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think as you were going through all that, obviously we were familiar with Fate State and I We've seen a lot of those different versions of that. When you're saying a visual novel, do you mean the same as like what we from Japan you'd assume like a light novel? That's like the same terminology there.
Speaker 1:No, you're good. I mean as long as you don't meet yourself, amelia, we'll see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we heard you come back in, but we heard you come back in, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, oh there you go. You're good, you're good. Yeah, man, we almost got through the whole show with almost no technical difficulty. It happens every time, man.
Speaker 2:I mean from our standpoint. I think that's probably what is kind of inferring onto there, right, you know, and I think you're going to just end up saying more and more of that just as I don't want to say, like source content is starting to run out, right, but you're not getting as many as many like manga hitting it big as maybe it used to. Like fuck, you might not even have heard dude Like Black Clover just got dropped from Shonen Jump like two weeks ago, and they went to, they went to some other like third party, third party.
Speaker 1:Not actually looks like yeah manga show.
Speaker 2:It was like shoot, what do they call it? I forget what it's called, but so Black Clover, one of probably the most popular show you know shows and mangas out right now is not even on the most popular manga platform anymore.
Speaker 1:What the fuck dude that's? You know, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Which is like, yeah, I was just reading it, the fuck. Last week. I was like what? No fucking way, this is crazy. This has to be one of the biggest shows right now. Even though a lot of people talk, smack on it, you know they're not about it, what not?
Speaker 1:You'll talk smack on Overlord too. People don't know good shit when they see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I mean shit. People talk smack on one piece.
Speaker 1:You know it is what it is, but Fuck those people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Um, ami-le, do you think you're my smack? I get, I'm you, you myself. You know, you can see if it works. Maybe I can't Well there you are.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's the website that has problems.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, stream yard, it could be. Sometimes it's disconnected me here and there. So we hear you though still. So we'll kind of round out the show here, you know, like next like 10, 15 minutes. I was really interested in all the stuff you're talking about. I think Spencer was too. We're diving and thinking about the different perspectives of, like the anime art scene and all that and questions I've never really been thought to ask. Well, we strayed a little bit away from what we would normally do, so I want to ask like one or two more quick questions on that and then we can kind of end the show usually how we would end the show. Hopefully you're down, for this is a recommendation from us, from maybe some of you haven't seen.
Speaker 2:And then we get there. You wanted to ask first.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, but I was just kind of we asked the first question, but I was just saying what we're going about.
Speaker 2:It's a specific show.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know if that was racist or not.
Speaker 2:You said you said you were, but I mean you put it out there.
Speaker 1:So now I want, I want to know Amelia, we've never done anything on discord, otherwise I would totally ended on discord. Sorry, my friend, but hopefully you could just hear us and you just try to answer the questions best you can, and no big deal. We got tons of good content here, my friend. So my question was that Spencer told me might be insensitive and you can answer either through that or the text. You sound alien. Uh oh, that's not good. Well, we'll do our best here. We'll do our best. Hopefully you can hear what I'm saying. We we Spencer recommended to me a long time ago a show that is super dope, that we both really like. It has been kind of on a hiatus for a little bit now. It feels like the show's name is radiant and suspense. There's knowledge in mine. Oh no, you said it. I thought that was him. I thought it was him.
Speaker 1:I was like no way, I said that in case you could use an alien, so I want to hear what you're trying to say radiant, to our knowledge, is a French based show, or writers or something to that. To that degree, are you familiar with that show radiant? Oh no, maybe sounds so bad, I know about it.
Speaker 2:That almost kind of sounds like oh, I know about it Like yeah. I just got it with you A French manga?
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, cool, perfect. Yeah, we can still hear you, fine, sorry you can't hear us as well.
Speaker 1:We'll make sure to Spencer, put the questions in there for us, I guess, in the chat. So quick with it. Um, so you've heard about it. Is that not your kind of anime? Are you not into that type of anime? Because I for me, looking at your, my anime list and the comparing radio, I would not think that that's the kind of show you would like. Nice, spencer, yeah, I might be kind of tough here then. Sorry, listeners, as we get to the end, we're having a little bit of technical difficulties here.
Speaker 2:I haven't watched it, but he's aware of it. Okay, he's aware of it, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so unfortunate at the end of the show is kind of ending like this, because I wanted to kind of get a basis off what you're what. When I'm looking at your list and maybe Spencer can put that in there, I don't think it's that closely related, but I think maybe you like a show like freezing is something that we like. I don't see on your list. I don't see on your list Freezing yes, you've never have you heard of it.
Speaker 2:It's the oh, it's nothing to do with swimming.
Speaker 1:Definitely not. I'm looking at your list and I'm just seeing heavily based, you know, female leads and that is freezing. It's a little more savage, a little more our taste, but it's heavily female based, which can turn some people off. I mean, spencer talked about in the past how, you know, we don't mind a harem but sometimes it gets over fucking done. And then there's some really dope, savage ass, all chick cast shows. I wouldn't say those are my preference, but I don't not like them if they're good.
Speaker 1:Just trying to get a baseline on where you, where you find yourself, because we want to, I want to recommend a show or two to you and hopefully you'll take a chance to watch it. And oh, and, we lost Amelia. Well, maybe Amelia will come back. If not, no big deal, we do appreciate that interview. Oh oh, hey, we're back. We're back. Hey, amelia. How are we doing you? Good, maybe not. Amelia is trying her best to get back in here. We've appreciated the fuck-ass interview. I think it was really interesting perspective, even with the language barrier. I think you did a beautiful job explaining a lot of things to us.
Speaker 2:I think we could almost even do another one in a couple weeks, right? Maybe we actually type out questions and we kind of correspond back and forth a little bit more so we have a better understanding of. Obviously he knows way more shit than we know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think he's definitely on the right path. We could go ahead and close out here.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we're going to close out here because of the technical difficulties. Amelia, you were amazing. We really appreciate it. I think Spencer is right. I'm going to add Spencer in the Discord with you too, so we can start communicating back and forth, start setting up some questions. Definitely want to do another interview with you. That was awesome. Give us lots of insight.
Speaker 2:Next interview, maybe we'll talk more about yeah he's rubbing shoulders with other directors and stuff. Right, this is our in-guy, this is our in-guy.
Speaker 1:We're going to go out to France and do an anime workshop.
Speaker 2:We know people, who know people. We're going to know other people, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fuck, amelia, you're going to have to hook us up. Do you got to make sure to promote our show to all those people out there? They want to learn some English. Where we're here for you, we'll give you all the sarcastic shit. That's the funny thing, though. As we're ending the show, as Spencer brought up, we use all these platforms to post this out here, and we appreciate everyone that's coming and interviewing with us. We get viewers from Germany technically, it said, singapore, france. Now Spencer goes. How much of that do you think? Is there just trying to learn English? Do they actually care about anime? Always interesting. Amelia has just left. Now we appreciate the fuck out of you being on here. I'm hopefully going to go back and you'll listen to this as I post it Thursday For those that are interested in listening to this interview. They actually fucking interviewed someone that's not their friend. You're interested? Reach out to us. Holly Animated Podcasts. Holly Animated P.
Speaker 2:We're on X. We don't care. We don't care. You want to swear. You want to talk about stuff that's not popular. We talk about stuff that's not popular here.
Speaker 1:All the time, all the time, dude. So we really enjoyed having that. I can't say enough. I was actually really intrigued I think part of it's too just like listening to you like, oh fuck.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to like all right, what's this? Okay, I understand that. Yes, oh, I feel similar to 100%. I almost kind of wish we could have. Yeah, that's why I'm thinking maybe later on we would do another interview where it's like well, hey, you said you watched it in elementary. Then you got to middle school, high school, you stopped watching.
Speaker 1:I heard that too, right yeah.
Speaker 2:I think I would be very interested from a cultural standpoint, on what the significant or what the outlook is on people who do watch anime.
Speaker 1:During middle school and high school. Is it the same as us?
Speaker 2:It sounds like it's very similar to us right when you have to be very kind of like low key.
Speaker 1:Guarded.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey, hey, hey, that's in my locker guys.
Speaker 3:Like stay in my locker.
Speaker 1:Oh, amelia's back, Sorry, what's up Go?
Speaker 3:ahead. Yeah, but yeah, in France it's very common to watch anime. Oh, I think it's maybe not to the point of having like a girl switch out. I really hate a girl switch out, but I would like to know. But watching Ghibli? Ghibli was actually shown to us by my school teacher, my home teacher. Wow, and he was also my history and geography teacher, so he was a notoriety rather and yeah, but it's rather still low key, you know it's very low key.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh, we know.
Speaker 3:But throughout high school it was more accepted than in middle school, Maybe because people are less edgy?
Speaker 1:No, edgy, I like that, that's a good word.
Speaker 3:And like the monomies in middle school, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, well, I got me back here still, you know We'll round the show out right here so we don't have any more technical difficulties. We just want to tell you thank you so much for coming on the show, really appreciate it. I think Spencer hit it perfectly. We want to interview you again. Maybe we'll have some more questions laid out so we can have a little bit more interaction from our end, because we're not in the same you know world as you, as, when it comes to animation and Spencer brought up a good point here your rubbing shoulders with directors and stuff out there we're going to have to, you know, meet some people through you, and that's what networking is all about. But I think Spencer brought up a good point. I think next time around we want to talk more about like culturally, how has anime accepted in France? It's not? You kind of highlighted it right there. But I think we we could probably hit on a couple more deeper questions for another interview and also we are heavy into like.
Speaker 1:When we interview people we want to recommend to anime based on like, kind of talking to them and knowing okay, hey, this is where we see you liking anime and we just want to know like hey, did we? Did we nail it or did we not? Did we give you a recommendation? You're like, oh, fuck, yeah, I really like that. Or can I recommend anime? I'm not going to ask the fucking Lulie, absolutely. So I guess, for just an easy one offer of real quick look over your list and not going into depth about necessarily an amazing we were talking more anime style and directors and stuff we're I want to recommend freezing, that's. I think that's the nice middle level for us, where it's all pretty much female based and savages fuck, which is what we're about here. So I don't know if you're necessarily about that savagery and that this freezing, yeah, I guess. No, we'll talk more on discord. I'll add Spencer in there.
Speaker 3:We'll talk about it. What's?
Speaker 1:up.
Speaker 3:It's rated seven.
Speaker 1:Rated seven. Okay, cool yeah. So you so you really take my anime list ratings into consideration.
Speaker 3:It sounds like no, it's me that rated it. I watched, oh, and actually the reason I prefer my anime list is because if you watch any list honestly, from a deep perspective, when you export your list from my anime list to any list. It's five years and exporting from any list to my anime list. Therefore, at some point, like in 2019, there was a lot of instability on the website. My name is there for us to like use any list as a backup list.
Speaker 1:Okay, Makes sense. Well, that's, yeah. I mean, I don't we just kind of rate shows as we go, we don't even honestly, we just use a list to compile shit, to be honest.
Speaker 2:but that's, that's you know I'm we don't necessarily agree with their ratings most of the time, but sometimes they are, they are on spot, but I'd say I'm interested to know what you would recommend us as an anime to watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hopefully you're still there. Hopefully we didn't drop out again. Dude, what anime would you recommend us? Do you want to write it in the chat and we can talk about it out loud if you're still here with us? Sorry, guys, the airways between the West Coast, california and France, you know, you know, there's a lot of moving parts there. Okay, many a mile, many a mile. I think it's device disconnected.
Speaker 2:This, this, uh, yeah, these cables are only so effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably my internet, to be honest. It's fucking everything up. But yeah, I'm actually really interested to see what a million would say Probably, shut the fuck up. What anime device is not connected? There we go. What?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was saying, yeah, the the cabling needs to make a improvement here.
Speaker 1:California. Mata that that the show that you recommend. Okay.
Speaker 3:And I am a ties, but you're so cool. He dancing basically and it's also a cute driven by a high schoolers uh, japanese high school girls anime and basically it's about dancing and it was directed by the director of no game, no life and the Prince of Strang no game, no life.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the use of um compositing is visual effects, uh, photography, direction of photography in anime and the compositing in the name of the and also the character acting. That's why I would recommend it.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, out of respect for you, I'm going to check out the show, but I'm not going to lie to you dancing show. I do not know how I'm going to get down with that, so I'm going to watch it. For sure, I'm going to give you all my take on it. I know, yeah, I know, I, we, we, I'm more willing than this fucking guy laughing over here to check out. So this guy doesn't check out Shit, he stays in his own guy, I think a lot of people do you mean.
Speaker 1:Have you watched Blue Lock ranking in Kings Any other show? Oh, what's the sign?
Speaker 2:I've told you for years.
Speaker 1:No, the years it's been months, shut up Years, uh yeah. So Amelia wanted to tell you guys, in case you didn't hear, we'll wrap it up right here. Amelia, maybe you could say goodbye to everyone. I actually had a recommendation because you said you speak Japanese and I would love for you to say, if you could, the highly animated podcast is awesome in Japanese. Can you, could you? Could you say that? No too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably, yeah, I'm going to cut out.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I can't give you that plug. Well, amelia, we appreciate you coming on here. We're going to definitely do another interview with you and maybe we'll get that out of you next time. As always, watch some fucking anime.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yeah, good yeah.